Lofi Scifi - Recently Updated Pages

BUDGET

INFEST WISELY, a LoFiSciFi Movie

CREDITS

DIRECTORS

MUSIC

_ARCHIVED RESOURCES

LOCATIONS

_ARCHIVED ACTORS

SPECIAL EFFECTS

PROJECT SCHEDULE

_ARCHIVED IDEAS

_ARCHIVED INSPIRATION

PRE-PRODUCTION [COMPLETE]

PRODUCTION [COMPLETE]

POST-PRODUCTION [COMPLETE]

DISTRIBUTION

NANITES

PRESENTATION

COMPUTERS

For the shooting schedule see this calendar.

August 2006

September 2006

October 2006

November 2006

December 2006

Sources of Money: $2535

Total Costs: $3390

Production Costs: $668

Post-production Costs: $300

Promotional Costs: $467

Festival Fee Costs: $555

DVD Pressing Costs: $1400

DVD Postage Costs : $203 (107 DVDs sent to 40 Canadian, 57 American and 10 international)

Sprites are a new, chewable nanotechnology that lets you take photos with your eyes, cures cancer and eliminates body odour. Forget outsourcing, insourcing is cheaper and closer to home!

But the early adopters are realizing they got extra "features" they didn't count on. And cats in Bangkok are starting to use tools...

Maybe migrant workers in the bloodstream wasn't such a great idea.

Infest Wisely is a lo-fi sci-fi zerobudget feature written by Jim Munroe. Seven segments, each with a different director and intertwining characters, explore a world changed by the tiniest product in history.

How Are We Shooting?

Editing Protocols

Transitions & Credits

Cover Concepts

How Will We Get it Out There?

Obsolete

Orientated

Early Adopter

Spawning Rebellion

Sublime Algorithm

General Chaos

Leveller

Special Thanks to

#3 - "Early_Adopter"

Other Possibilities

What We Need

Crew and Skills

Tools or Resources We Have

Our Pool of Acting Talent

LAPTOP

PALMTOP

HANDTOP

What Are We Shooting? (Ideas)

Inspiring Movies

nomediakings — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:29:07 CDT

$1500: 3x $500 from sponsors of Advance Screening
$810: door at Advance Screening
$225: door and DVD sales at DVD launch

Jon
atm $20
autoshare $40
dv tapes $20

Kirby
$0

Craig
MiniDV tapes $50
Lipstick camera clamp $20
Pizza and snacks $50
Props $60
Misc $20
Dinner for sound engineer $10

Chris
$5 on duct tape.
$20 bucks on goggles and various dollar store items.
$25 on mini DV tapes
$10 on gas

Jim
duct tape $20
roti for actor $5
sandwich fixens for shoot $30
wrap party snacks $40
boom pole $15
minidv tapes $60
card reader prop $5
tab lick prop $6
beer prop $20
cat collar $20
Dinner for sound engineer $10

Rose
$30 minidv
$15 cab fare

Benny
$5 gas
$2 parking meter
$30 parking ticket
$5 minidv

$300 on external HD

$20 on posters
$7 on paste
$270 on postcards
$80 on tech at innis
$20 on 200 file folders
$10 on Celtx scripts
$10 on buttons
$20 on gum
$30 on 2000 labels for postcards

$20 on Can Filmmakers Fest (denied)
$45 on Zompire (denied)
$40 on Winnipeg (denied)
$0 on Rooftop Films (denied)
$50 on TIFF (denied)
$100 on Raindance (denied)
$40 on Chicago Underground FF (denied)
$30 on After Dark (denied)
$50 on Fantastic Fest (denied)
$30 on Film Pop (denied)
$60 on International Horror & Sci-Fi Film Festival (denied)
$35 on Ann Arbor (denied)
$45 for Slamdance (denied)

nomediakings — Sun, 20 May 2007 14:50:30 CDT

I'm going to write and produce a series of interlocking shorts with some kind if science fiction bent. I can write it so that separately they work on their own, but together they tell a larger story. Given that it's a science-fiction narrative, this disjointedness will be stylistically appropriate. There will be recurring locations, actors and music to give it a sense of continuity. We're going with a team of seven directors, each responsible for a 12ish minute segment within of the 80-90 minute final.

I want to get the directors involved in the script writing process now because I want to pool our resources and write it from what we have access to rather than what we wish we had. Stage one is getting interested directors to keep an eye out for sf-suitable or just interesting locations, thinking about the actors they'd like to use and the themes or situations they'd like to shoot. Through conversations and this site we will amass the resources we need to make this movie for $0. The resources are listed on the left nav bar.

For the shooting schedule see this calendar. [UPDATE: We shot 85 pages in 97 hours over a six week period. Kick ass!]
Production stills from Craig's "Early Adopter" segment...

...from Rose's "General Chaos" segment [Rose has some more over here]..
.

...from Chris' "Spawning Rebellion" band sequence...

...more of the city destruction from Patricio's eye view

...Betty Wang took some shots at Chris' nonanite gang meetin at the Reservoir

Jim took a few shots at Craig's sound studio shoot...

Jim also took a couple at Benny's bike stunt shoot...

and a couple more were shot at Jim & Benny's Scarb u of t shoot

These are some of the issues that have come up and should be thought about before the shooting begins.

Do we have enough 24p cameras to go around?
Should we try to shoot most of it in 24p, letterbox style?

Craig M clarifies: The two main issues with shooting format are frame rate and aspect ratio. It's probably for the best if we all shoot regular NTSC (30fps), Progessive if we can (non-interlaced). Trying to all do 24p or mixing and matching sounds like a nightmare. Next is the choice between 4:3 (normal TV) or 16:9 (letterbox). I'm gunning for 16:9, but it might not be the most practical if we're using different cameras. But we can find creative solutions to mix and match the two ratios, no? Thoughts...?
We're shooting 16:9, in normal NTSC (30fps)

Will this translate to a web vid OK? (yep, no problem - CM)
Other than still photos are there other press-kit type tools that we should generate at this stage?
Benny had the idea of us all doing a white balance off of an off blue bristol board, so we all have a similar eerie hue.

Many of us have always shot and edited our own stuff and evolved our own idiosyncratic methods. We're doing our own edits of our segments but probably at some point we'll want to hand it over to a third party for special effects, colour correction, sound level syncing etc. Here are a couple of things that will let us hand over our edits and tapes to a fine editor or a sound editor and have them be able to work with it easily.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE NO TIMECODE BREAKS. You can find this out by simply fast-forwarding through your tapes -- if at some point it resets to zero, then you have a break. Get in touch with <craig@mise-en-chien.com> and he'll redub it onto a new tape.
work with an editing system like Premier Pro or Final Cut Pro -- in the end, you'll have to export an EDL (Edit Decision List) in CMX3600 format.
In Premiere, when you are in the "Capture" window, you should always give the tape a name in the "Tape Name" box that is your name and the number of the tape, ie. jim1, rose3, whatever -- make sure it's less than 8 characters. in Final Cut Pro this is in the "Log and Capture" window. i think you can do this after the fact in your bin -- there should be a "Tape Name" column you should be able to change.
Steve, our post-audio editor says: Give me everything. Don't delete any channels of audio (camera mics or whatnot). It's better if I get too much than not enough. Don't consolidate or mix-down anything. I should be getting audio *exactly* as it was digitized off the shoot tapes, please.

How can we facilitate transitions from one segment to another?

Craig M had that idea about using abstract images as interstitials, especially if the breaks have any kind of text, like date ("September 5, 2395") or location ("New Brampton, Mars Colony").
Benny mentioned using the lipstick cams to get a super low perspective of the street with lights flashing by overhead for that lo-fi sci-fi feel.
We'll have a much better idea of how to do this once we see the rough edits
Craig is keen on the idea of the title of the movie going last
Jim thinks that for the feature length edit, the credits from each segment should go at the very end, otherwise the flow will be seriously messed up.

Some ideas for things that could work as a poster or dvd cover.

close-up of Stef/Andrea's face with the duct tape, INFEST WISELY written across it
a stencil graffiti style rendition of Digger's face with INFEST WISELY beneath it -- in this kinda style. [UPDATE: The guy who made the stencils on that site, is into making us a stencil of Digger!]

We've been lucky enough to get Innis Town Hall for the premier of INFEST WISELY! The Innis Town Hall (St. George and Sussex) is a modern theatre space downtown, seats 300 and best of all, we're getting it for free.And it also looks like we'll be able to charge $5 at the door, which should fund a pressing of DVDs as well. [Done. It went amazing.]
I will be looking for funding as the process continues but as long as we're prepared to do it anyway we don't need to get caught up in the budget-approval game. Any funding or money we make off the movie will be split evenly amongst me and all the directors. Some funding ideas that people have brought up are arts councils, Bravo/Fact, and Kinooga... please add your ideas here.

Bravo/Fact has a 6 minute max, and our shorts are twice that, so no go. The Canada Council has a November 1 deadline for the Media Arts Dissemination Grant and it looks very promising. Jim will apply for this if our project is eligible. [It wasn't, as only completed artworks are considered, but it'll be eligible for the May 1 2007 deadline.]

I'd like to make this a Creative Commons licensed movie. This won't interfere with us making money off it if someone wants to distribute or broadcast it through traditional means and will help with promotion and puts forth the science fictional notion that culture should be free. We won't be the first (Star Wreck, a Finnish spoof, was) but I think it'd be cool.
Pressing DVDs of the final rather than burning it might be something to consider, if we were able to raise the funds: to press 1000 in bulk (ie, we'd have to buy a cover/case on our own) costs $700, to have it fully manufactured costs about twice that.
Doing a screening of the shorts we've done as a fundraiser was a suggestion Craig M had. We can also recoup the costs by promoting the hell out of the screening of the actual screening [have to check what the Bloor charges for a rental]. I think if we can make these events work as promo for the final project it'd be well worth it. At the shorts screening fundraiser, perhaps we could make a trailer for the final feature? So perhaps we should make it happen after the shoot but before the final edit?
Craig M also mentioned http://www.withoutabox.com/ as a way to apply to a bunch of film fests simultanously. Apps also cost money, but if we each take one, that's 8 festivals.
Craig M (so full of ideas, that guy) thinks it might be a good idea to get a rough cut into the NSI FilmExchange Canadian Film Festival. it's a Canuck-only festival in Winnipeg each March and a heck of a lot of fun. Here's the link- http://www.nsi-canada.com/ - but the deadline is Nov. 1.[Maybe next year.]
Craig's found another fest that looks good -- www.canfilmfest.ca -- deadline's Jan. 12. [Submitted, denied]

CWM73 — Sat, 12 May 2007 17:57:33 CDT

Directed by Jon Sasaki
Music by Granny Ark

DIGGER Sean Lerner
KAREN Danielle Baker
AARON Guy Leshinski
DJ Michelle Irving
BAR EXTRAS Megarrah Woodland, Megan Leonard, Bethany Leonard, Melissa Areias, Cecilia Berkovic, Emily Hogg, Janis Demkiw, Mona, Sookie, Tanya Read

Thanks to Matt Beckerle at Parkdale Unit Snackbar, Dave Fingrut for propmastering, Terry Lau for the camera loaning.

FREESOUND SOUND EFFECTS
monaco street ambiance from third floor.aif By emmanuel
village hall buffet.aif by zippi1

Directed by Kirby Ferguson
Music by Mike Denheyer
Edited by Jim Munroe and Craig Macnaughton

PAYING DINER Alexandra Clark
DINER 1 Rannie Turingan
DINER 2 Tana Rollo
WAITRESS Cathy Lam
ROB Pascal Boisvert
KAREN Danielle Baker
RACHEL Irena Huljak
MATTHEW Lucas Costello
DAVIDSON Andre Critchlow
ROY Sean MacMahon
HARRY Chris Mills

Thanks to Johan Maes and the staff at Le Petit Dejeuner, Forget About It Supper Club, Cynthia Gould for office finding.

FREESOUND SOUND EFFECTS
long subway ride.MP3 by sagetyrtle

Directed by Craig Macnaughton
Cinematography by Jordan Cushing
Music by John Critchley
Sound by Dave Fingrut and Jim Munroe

CHRISTINA Christina Jol
ROY Sean MacMahon
RANDY Mike Moses
STUDIO MANAGER Susan Bustos
PHILIP Patricio Davila
CRONE Jing Li
CLIENT Saranya "Jing" Kittanakom
LOUDMOUTH Terry Lau
MONKEY ONE Nipapatra "Gift" Vanakijpaibul
MONKEY TWO Darin Jaturapatporn
YOUNG FAMILY Yvonne, Mike and Max
WOMAN IN BATHROOM Cathy Gordon
WOMAN IN BOUTIQUE Julia Burton

Thanks to Russell Walker and Pamela Brookes at Kitchen Sync Digital Audio, Chandra Bulucon, Debra Felstead for the apartment lending.

FREESOUND SOUND EFFECTS
marina city 42floor.wav by fonogeno
hallo-market.wav and Kashgar-2.wav by jmfh
120bpmhardwithacid.aif by djgriffin

Directed by Chris McCawley
Cinematography by Matthew Lazzarini
Produced by Anthony Cortese
Edited by Sarah Grant
Music by Joel S. Silver

Make-up by Trina Brink

Additional Costumes by Monster Muffin

Sound by Amy Singh

STEF Andrea Battersby
RACHEL Irena Huljak
TIM Adam Risbridger
ELLA Deborah Ella Robinson
SIMON Luke Hawkins
JOHN Reade Olivier
KELLY Troy Jackson
NONANO GANG Jonathan Culp, Terrence Reeves, Jun, Rick C., Isabel David Palman, Aimee Hindle, Susan Bustos, Stacy King, Craig Macnaughton, Shanez Amlani, Kelsey Carricee, Yvonne Bambrick, Michael Louis Johnson, Dave Fingrut

Thanks to Frank and the staff and management of the Cameron House, Shawn Micallef, Leif Harmsen, Tina Cooper for mic finding, Judy McCawley, Peter McCawley.

FREESOUND SOUND EFFECTS
cafeteria2.wav by Corsica_S

Directed by Jim Munroe
Cinematography by Terry Lau
Music by Jon Mak

AARON Guy Leshinski
COMPUTER VOICE Christina Jol
STUDENT Nancy Johnston
KEVIN Kevin Hainey
ROY Sean MacMahon
RACHEL Irena Huljak
DIGGER (FLASHBACKS) Sean Lerner

Thanks to posterboy for the stencil art, Ryan North for stencil smuggling, Nancy Johnston for the office getting, Terry Lau for the camera loaning.

FREESOUND SOUND EFFECTS
monaco street ambiance from third floor.aif by emmanuel
village hall buffet.aif by zippi1
cavalier4cly.mp3 by jmfh
sound-floppy1.mp3 by zippi1

Directed by Rose Bianchini
Miniatures by Jason Van Horne
Music by Matias Rozenberg with Jason Hollows, Chris Cummings and Alexis Hooper (1989-1994)

ELLA Deborah Ella Robinson
GRACE Lorraine Hewitt
COLIN Anthony Cortese
PHILIP Patricio Davila
CAT Oppenhiemer, with the voice of Sean MacMahon
NONANO GANG Michael Louis Johnson, Dave Fingrut, Craig Macnaughton, Tanya Read, Lorraine Hewitt

Thanks to Beth Biederman, Lena Olin, Jesse Demb for cat wrangling, Sandy Plotnikoff for collar lending, Sheri Decaro and Julia Burton at Iki Boutique, Daphne and Freedom Clothing, John MacDonald and Exile, Dave Fingrut for postcard designing, Brian and Emily at The Centre for Culture and Leisure No. 1, Terry Lau for the camera loaning.

Directed by Benny Zenga
Music by The New Kings and Mike Denheyer

KEVIN Kevin Hainey
AARON Guy Leshinski
STEF Andrea Battersby
TIM Adam Risbridger
LEAGUER Scott Waters
LEAGUER II Benny Zenga
PHILIP Patricio Davila

Thanks to Marc Ngui for the fake ad, Terry Lau for the camera loaning, Neil Khanna and Dave Sullivan.

FREESOUND SOUND EFFECTS
marina city 42floor.wav by fonogeno
Breezy city amb.wav by patchen
cavalier4cly.mp3 by jmfh
atmo_fabrikhalle-lagerhalle_2.mp3 by Connum
sound-floppy1.mp3 by zippi1
cans-4.wav by zerolagtime
floppydrive_insert_feedout.mp3 by sirplus

Production Assisting by Dave Fingrut
Sound Editing by Steve Denheyer
Supervising Editor and Visual Effects by Craig Macnaughton
Produced by Jim Munroe and Craig Macnaughton

Betty Wang for production photography, Rannie Turingan for promotional photos,James King, Janet Attard and Martin Heath at Cine Cycle, Innis Town Hall and CINSSU for screening help, and to Celtx, Project Wonderful, & The Cultural Gutter for sponsoring the screening.

Test screeners and script consultants: Carma Jolly, Susan Bustos, Meesoo Lee, Chris Smets, Ryan North, Carly Stasko, Carol Borden, Trevor Norris, Shannon Gerard, Mark Connery, Sally McKay.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Shot on location in Torontopia.

All the characters in this film are fictional and and resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

www.nomediakings.org [logo instead?]

www.filmquake.com [logo instead?]

© 2007 Some Rights Reserved

www.infestwisely.com

nomediakings — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 17:28:54 CST

Kirby Ferguson
Kirby's Goodie Bag TV recently put out a DVD of his comedy shorts. On the web, his music video “Do You Take It” has recently cracked a million downloads. He's had experience with online video distribution he's willing to share.
Benny Zenga
Creator of The Winking Circle DVD, a small town ontario call-to-arms populated by crazy art bikes and crazier stunts. It was recently featured at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Special skill: welding.
Craig Macnaughton
Craig is the guy behind All Day Breakfast, who make “authentic video comedy.” Their musical short Dog Given Rights won Kevin Spacey's Triggerstreet.com 3rd On-line Short Film Festival. Craig brings some digital effects skills to the project, Motion, After Affects and Live Type.
Jon Sasaki
Jon is a member of the art collective Instant Coffee and the most frequent contributor to Novel Amusements other than myself. He's got access to the tools for and is willing to do some quick and simple set design.
Rose Bianchini
Art Director for rock opera Rat King, which just finished a restaging at Harbourfront. She's worked on documentary/talk show The Big Picture with Avi Lewis and two years ago, she made a movie style trailer for my first novel, Flyboy Action Figure Comes With Gasmask. Special skill she's adding to the mix: miniature making.
Chris McCawley
Chris is also courtesy of the delicious All Day Breakfast, and acted in the aforementioned Dog Given Rights. He's done professional voice acting and yet still is incredibly excited to be involved with this. He brings the gift of music to the project.
Jim Munroe
Yes, I'm going to do a segment too. Hopefully I won't bring the curve down too badly.

nomediakings — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:10:25 CST

Each director will be working with a musician of their choice who will be riffing off of the melody Chris came up with for the NONANO song at some point in their score and thus bringing another element of cohesiveness to the project. However, it's just a stepping off point for the musicians, who we hope will interpret it in anyway they and their director see fit.

Singer/songwriter/producer John Critchley has jumped on board the "Infest Wisely" bandwagon as composer for Craig's section. John is the former frontman for the celebrated Canadian band 13 Engines and now runs Green Door Studio.

Robot Ponies by Laura Barrett (play it thru player)
Stop Die Rescussitate (great epic sounding hiphop)
Kirby suggested: http://windomearle.com/music/girls/eightmonths.mp3
http://windomearle.com/music/girls/youcantdancetodreams.mp3
Lindon Parker has pointed us here as an example of what he can do

nomediakings — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 13:57:04 CDT

a classic convertible or some kind of vintage car
a location that could act as a sound studio with a big soundboard
lighting kit, boom stick of some sort (have some mikes)
a card reader for a bank card
a cheap looking ATM in a corner or hallway
fake money, fifties and twenties and hundreds

Dave Fingrut <fingrut@gmail.com>: i'm happy doing p.a. stuff, locations management, holding a boom mike,
filming, doing catering, or being a background actor
Ted <deadrobot@gmail.com>: great zombie make up. Some prosthetics. Nothing major. Extra work (See me in queer as folk, this is wonderland), graphic design (web/print) and the guy who does the clapper thingy.
Amy Singh <asingh@mavenstrategies.ca> has assitant art directed and is up for whatever.

Benny has access to "lipstick cameras" that can be mounted on helmets or used in a jerky way to imply the pov of a machine or a creature
Benny can also weld shit together
Craig M. has access to an arsenal of digital effects, which might be good if we can find an appropriate way to use them (this includes Apple's LiveType and awesome Motion apps, plus After Effects)
Jon is a member of autoshare: i have access to some cars and a van. some of the cars are very photogenic. i think they have a smartcar or two. very sci-fi. i think for insurance reasons i would have to drive, but i'm happy
to do that.
Jon: I have access to some basic power tools like a table saw, circular saw,
drills, etc. i can help with quick and simple set design, although i don't
have a tonne of time to do this...
Jon: i'm half-decent with photoshop, if someone needed a special effects
still, i could probably help with that. i could photoshop a blurry ufo into
a grainy skyline.. i don't know if that's useful or not...
Craig W.: I can do a bunch of after effects stuff. In fact, I'm planning on it. I might be able to do some small stuff for others as well... time permitting =)
Susan Bustos is available for wardrobing (see her thrifting skillz at work in Million Dollar Gamer)
Benny: Portable 400w powerpack (It’s heavy, 35lbs, but I carry it in a backpack and it’s great for remote location power & lighting)
Rear projection screen & projector
Work lights
Gels
Assorted cameras (Super8, DV, HDV)
Dummy cameras
Trike dolly
Wheelchair dolly
Car or Van
Scooter
Welder
Sam Gorrie might be up for illustrations

Craig M thinks that if Sam is up for it, it might be cool to have eight original illustrations (one for each of the shorts and a final one for the entire film) that could be used for posters, DVD, web, publicity/presskits/postcards, t-shirts, etc. Sam could work in tandem with the filmmakers and produce something that would be influenced by the scripts, and not the final films. This could all be done within the spirit of the project, and give a distinct, original look unlike most film projects out there. A gallery show could also be arranged to show the original pieces.

Terry Lau is up for DVD/poster design
Jim has a 3-chip dv sony trv camera with minjack mike input & a shotgun mike
Jim also has a MP3 player than can record to 44,100 320kbps mp3 files from a minijack input -- strapped together with his minijack shotgun mike or another minijack mike it can be used as a "wireless" lavalier style and or boom style unit -- we'd have to test this out in advance, though.
Criag M has a camera car mount. It's a wooden sled you strap to the hood of your car and mount a camera on it. There's three different positions (right, center and left). You then run you mic inside the car and hide it somehow.

nomediakings — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 13:33:54 CDT

Debra lives in a coffin factory

...check out the floors
the atmospheric hallways
and the rooftop!
Jon S has a great view from his apt

and his apt has a great parking garage
Cyn works at a corporate office
don valley brickworks -- there's a cleaned up brickworks and a dirty, decaying untouched brickworks -- needless to say which is more interesting
You can get a better sense of the space with these videos here and here
The more manicured brickworks park has a marsh walkway
coming and going to the brickworks had some cool stuff too
Susan Bustos works at a lab
st.clair west emerg exit (subway stop has an exit onto a forested park walk -- it's overgrown and graffittied and sweetly post-apocalyptic)
Spadina & St. Clair (there's a hill overlooking the forest and the CN tower with some kind of mysterious squat water purification plant on it)
There's also a building nearby quite reminiscent of a british colonial hotel
Down a path from the reservoir is the aforementioned forest path and a decent overpass... it's got a new silver pipe installed that looks out of place and could be a plot point:
Campsite - This could be on a roof top in the city or in one of the valleys, or on crown land somewhere in the Canadian Shield. The idea is that there has been some kind of collapse and all the protagonists are left with is their camping gear.
U of T Scarborough campus has a giant 70s brutalist concrete building that has some good angles. Very Logan's Run.
Just down the hill from this above pic...
There is an elevated city park in downtown hamilton that also has a 70's scifi feel to it.
Jon's building has a great parking garage and his 20 story balcony overlooks the Lakeshore highway and the lake
Benny's dad works with robotics and has access to a giant robot arm.
Dave Fingrut suggested this sock factory at king and spadina
and this wee bit of nova scotia beach in Kew beach, Toronto
Craig M has access to a 1000 square foot live/work studio that can be turned into whatever we want. High ceilings, re-paintable, Duffern and Dupont area.

nomediakings — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 13:28:48 CDT

Sean Lerner (Wipe That Lash)
Patricio Davila. The tall Chilean atar of >interactive
Susan Bustos, the doctor in Mario's Pain
Kevin Fell, a trained actor, early thirties.
Derek Forgie
Pascal Boisvert
Adam Wilson
Charlene Chartrand
Danielle Baker
Irena Huljak
Anna Huh
Christina - early 30's, medium length dark hair, trained actor.
French Canadian/Dutch. good at characters, can do both comedy and
drama (Donuts, TurnHere - Parkdale)
Anthony - early 30's, faux-hawk, but likes to cut and dye his hair at
will. trained actor. Italian. has an interesting dark side, but is
also funny as hell. lots of charisma.
Trina - mid 20's, med blond hair. not a trained actor, but played a
demon in a b-movie. square jaw, might be considered "shrill" or
"ditzy" by some, but is she really...?
Luke - late 20's, short dark hair. musician, but has acted a little.
a bit of a pretty boy, but has a philosophical bent.
Alexandra Clark <lex@cheapeatstoronto.com> is up for voice acting (great computer chick voice)

CWM73 — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 20:16:57 CDT

As Craig has offered to do some effects, here are some early sample images and test clips.

So far only Chris and I have nanite effects (is this correct? anyone else?) I'm still developing these, so please drop me a line if you have any ideas. I can animate all of these in post for a consistant look if you guys want to.

This is something Jim, Kirby and I have discussed very briefly. It would be a visual "PowerPoint of the Future" explaination of how the nanites work. i'm still developing this, so any ideas...

To give this film some consistency, I think it might be fun to standardize on at least a few "futuristic" items, which I think should include computers. The machines that we'll be using five years in the future will be slimmer and more powerful than the ones of today. I've included samples of three of these below.

This is just a cutting board from the dollar store, but it comes in a few different colours and is the right size and shape. What I would do would be to composite a screen onto it in post (see the Palmtop sample below). This will be what the CHRISTINA character uses to check her photos in my piece "EARLY_ADOPTER".

CLICK HERE TO VIEW A QUICKTIME DEMO

This is a smaller cutting board with an LED mounted in it. Again, very simple, yet effective.

This is just a piece of clear plastic I picked up at Active Surplus. The visual test below is VERY ROUGH but should give you an idea as to what is possible. This will be what the ROY character uses to show off his photos in my piece, "EARLY_ADOPTER".

CLICK HERE TO VIEW QUICKTIME DEMO

nomediakings — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 16:43:47 CDT

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25 Christmas Day	26	27	28	29	30
31

nomediakings — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 22:32:48 CDT

I saw a girl today leaning over to fix her bike, and her hair hanging down looked like tentacles.
I talked with Kirby today about bike rage vs. road rage. What if someone started taking anger management pills and discovered that the fantasies they had about beating someone up actually happened and the people turned up dead?
things that are only slightly inhuman (cgi models, manequins) are creepier than things that are completely inhuman (werewolves, teddybears) -- an interesting idea posited as the uncanny valley, I'd like to use some imagery that takes advantage of this "slightly off" dynamic.
Jon wants to use subtitles at some point in a slowly building dramatic short.
Jon also mentioned Curb Your Enthusiasm's method of improv dialogue as to give it a realism.
Kirby adds: The director's commentary for Steven Soderbergh's "Bubble" has some insights about using non-actors. The most important point was to let them say the dialogue in their own way. He just told them the points that had to be made, and they made them in their own way. He didn't audition people -- just interviewed them for about a half-hour, often choosing people who simply were the characters. (I'm a big fan of the performances in this film.)
It would be a fun thing to play with director's commentaries -- Benny mentioned it'd be funny to make up prices for every shot as if the no-budget aethetic was chosen because it was fashionable; in the past Jon's also mentioned playing with commentaries.
Craig M adds: An idea to add consistency and a thread that would weave throughout the finals pieces would be to use a common image system. An image system is a cinematic device used by a director that uses a common visual element - water, for instance - and creativily uses that element throughout the film - rain, garden hose, swimming pool, cold drinks, etc. A great example of an image system is the recent film C.R.A.Z.Y. which uses a water theme throughout. Nothing needs to be decided upon now, as the best image systems appear organtically as the script is developed, but it could be something cool to think about.
same phrase (the world is scraped clean) in each short: it's overlaid with each previous recording of it so that each time it's said it becomes stranger
selling fast food (or other min wage job) that caters to rich alien species
Craig M. mentioned that getting various musicians/composers/DJ's to score it in an improv style (maybe a live screening/scoring session), and then choosing the best performances from each or mixing them together in a cool way. Might be an interesting way to go about it.
Both Craigs have mentioned that 90 minutes for a script is longer than it needs to be -- 75 or 80 minute pieces are also considered features. Craig W. warned that it's hard to keep the narrative tension in a short much longer than 10 minutes, so that's a challenge I'll keep in mind when I'm writing it. Even though 80/6=13.3 minutes I think I'll write 15 pages for each story (1 minute is approx 1 script page) anyway to give us a bit of editing wiggle room.
Craig M. has an idea to 'pad' things out a bit - very short, visual interstitials that could be the work of another, more abstract filmmaker, or contributed by the ones signed up already. These bits could include the opening and closing credits, plus act as common bridges between the pieces and add 7-9 minutes to the run time. Just an idea...

CRAIG M
strong female character
- a dash of comedy
- someone violently destroying a piece(s) of technology
Idea Two Concept - the world's first digital pandemic; computer-to-human infection. no one knows if it was spread by teledildonics, Bluetooth-enabled cell phones, WiFi networks, GPS or your iPod's corrupted MP3 metadata (or a comination of all of these things), but people are somehow getting computer viruses: spyware, adware, worms, trojan horses, phishing attacks, malware, spam and more...
Theme - trying to hold on to love. Idea One one theme that came to me was the idea of "accelerated cultural co-option", which basically means how fast "cool" is absorbed into the mainstream. especially these days with blogs, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, targeted Google ads, and 'cool hunters' - it seems that the time from when some kid somewhere says the next hot catch phrase (or wears that outfit, or listens to that song) to the time when everyone is using that catch phrase is becoming smaller and smaller.

an image i had was that a character would say something, then moments later thay would see it on a billboard selling Sprite. i think this idea is about the idea of 'personalized media' taken to it's riduculous conclusion. how can someone be an individual when their individuality is immediatly copied?

Craig W
Possible Locations
- parking lots
- radio tower at St. Clair & Spadina
- tops of high buildings
I would like to explore a story that works within its own internal logic, without having to explain the logic to whomever is watching it. It should be as if the audience is peering into another world - a world that isn't aware of an audience and doesn't feel the need to explain itself. The Aeon Flux cartoons did this well, the movie, unfortunately but not surprisingly, did not. Also an inspiration is Slow Bob in The Lower Dimension, animator Henry Selick's (Nightmare before Christmas) short film. Code 46 and a clockwork orange also. The Matrix would have been great if they didn't feel the need to explain everything to us all the time. Maybe I've been reading too much Herzog on Herzog.

It would be neat to see the same actors in different incarnations in each film, much in the same way that Aeon Flux would die in one episode to be alive again in the next with no explanation, and that there was always some sort of version of Trevor Goodchild, even if was a gang of Trevor Goodchild Spider creatures.

Jon S
- Jon wants to use subtitles at some point.
- he favours a slowly building dramatic short.
i was talking to a lady today at swiss chalet. she is a nurse at a local seniors home. yesterday one of the alzheimer's patents escaped which apparently happens a lot. they had to run around the annex looking for her. i thought about developing a short video about a bounty hunter that gets called to retrive these people. could include "flashbacks" of what the alzheimer's patients are experiencing. probably not appropriate for this project, though. anyone know any senoirs who might be interested?

nomediakings — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 22:32:08 CDT

29

Show and Tell Meeting

Add your own lofi or scifi movies!

Code 46 (Michael Winterbottom uses tone, language to invoke the future -- his 24 Hour Party People is just as strange and weird). Bittorrent
Primer (I liked this a lot but it boasts that you have to watch it twice to understand it, which I think is a writing flaw not an asset) Bittorrent
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (I cried. I can't name another sf movie that made me feel that way. Great soundtrack too.) Bittorrent
Ringu - had some very creepy moments, particularly the way the little girl ghost moves. Bittorrent
La Jetée, the French movie 12 Monkeys was based on. Bittorrent
The American Astronaut is low budget SF that Benny recommended -- it's a little too self-consciously campy for my tastes but I liked the way they use music in it Bittorrent
I didn't like It's All About Love much (I watched it b/c I liked Dear Wendy a lot by the same director, Thomas Vinterberg) but I enjoyed a moment at the beginning where some characters notice a dead guy at the bottom of the escalator they're on. The body jerked slightly as the steps slid by under him, and they just step over him and go about their business -- apparently people are dying all the time of some heart ailment. It was nice mix of the grim and the familar.
Wim Wender's Until the End of the World is a really interesting, different sort of sci-fi flick. Great production design, use of music and tone. The kind of film that stays with you well after you've seen it.
Craig W. mentioned that The Soul Investigator is a Toronto art-SF film made about 10 years ago. Can't seem to find it anywhere, did a call around the usual vid stores but no go.
He mentioned Cosmos is a movie that has several segments directed by different people.
He also highly recommended Guy Madden's 7 minute Heart of the World.
There's also Robot Stories as a lof-fi sci-fi anthology, Canada's own Nothing, and the classic anthology film Creepshow.
Debra mentioned Personal Velocity as an anthology movie written by one person. (Not to be confused with Charlie Sheen vehicle Terminal Velocity.)